Science gets burned by Prometheus

Ridley Scott had this viewer feeling like his innards were plucked out by birds.

It's no secret that science and the entertainment industry aren't always the best of bedfellows. Back in 2009, I reported from that year's AAAS meeting on NSF's program to encourage responsible science in Hollywood. Then, the message was clear. Hollywood is interested in telling a story, and if scientific accuracy gets in the way, well, it's getting run right over. But after finally seeing Prometheus this past weekend, I've come to realize that the industry's contempt for even vaguely plausible science all-but-guarantees I won't be able to suspend my disbelief. And it doesn't have to be like this.

Warning: spoilers will follow.

My problems with the film began almost immediately. A Lord of the Rings-inspired panoramic landscape gives way to a humanoid standing by a waterfall. He drinks some black goop, and then his DNA begins to fall apart, followed quickly by the rest of him. This mess all dissolves into the river, et voilà—the implication is that humans arose because of this. Just five minutes in and my brain is already beginning to push back against this dreck.

Sadly, it gets worse from there. Prometheus, the titular space vessel, is carrying a crew of scientists to a moon orbiting a planet 37 light years away. This is no mere milk run, as is made abundantly clear. But if these are the best scientists you could find for an interstellar mission 80 years in the future, then the Earth of 2092 is in real trouble. To illustrate, put yourself in the shoes of Rafe Spall's character. You're a biologist, you're flying off to the stars to find evidence of aliens that have been tinkering with life on Earth, and at the first evidence (the corpse of a giant humanoid alien) what do you do? Marvel at the fact? Scan it and take samples? No, you decide you're going to go back to the spaceship for a nice cup of tea. A trillion-dollar mission into space and that's the caliber of researcher on board? I'd go on, except that I'm a week late to the party and others have already done this quite well.

Prometheus is hardly the only offender, just the one I've been exposed to most recently. As a dutiful husband, I took my wife to see Battleship a few weeks ago. Yes, going to see a movie based on the game of Battleship meant I expected something pretty bad. But again, the assault of stupidity in the first few minutes was so overwhelming I was shocked and awed into disbelief, and there I stayed. Perhaps I'm being churlish, expecting that a movie involving space aliens should at least respect or acknowledge the speed of light.

I don't think I am, though. I also don't think it's that unreasonable to expect at least a veneer of plausibility. Make up a wormhole or something. Run your script past a couple of grad students in exchange for some beer and pizza. Set your movie "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." But do something. Would it really have killed the Prometheus CGI team to render lots of little enzymes breaking up and rearranging the DNA at the beginning? John Scalzi's Redshirts might be aimed at long-running TV space operas, but the way the crew of Prometheus eschew common sense and basic logic would have them right at home on the Intrepid.

You might think this is just one more nerd ranting on the Internet about a movie they wanted to like but didn't, but I think it's more important than that. The way the media portrays science matters. The wild success of (scientifically implausible) shows like CSI and even Bones has meant a huge upsurge in applications to forensic science programs. Ask the public about DNA and at least a third of the responses will include something about Gattaca, depressing as that may be. Scientific literacy has never been great, but wouldn't the responsible thing be to include a kernel of truth in there so your audience goes home entertained and informed (albeit ever so slightly) at the same time?

I enjoyed Prometheus despite its many problems, but it gave me a familiar feeling - that it was filmed with a first draft script. I've had that sense watching a lot of Hollywood films lately. It's a shame they didn't do another pass to tighten it up - what ended up being an interesting but flawed film really could have been great.

Not that I disagree with anything you said, but Prometheus was undone more by story and character problems (as your example of the biologist illustrates) then its scientific errors. I could have suspended my disbelief much more willingly if the characters had at least acted in a consistent way....or at least in a way that made sense for human people to act.

I'd gladly throw science out the window if at least the story and characters were believable. But they weren't. Even some of the issues you mention with the characters' actions are simply a crap story built around the need for special effects and explosions, not science. I don't get why plot isn't considered important anymore in Hollywood.

The only reason I stuck with Stargate:Universe for as long as I did was because they actually did start with the problems of space survival and how to deal with it. We got a lesson in CO2 scrubbing, aerobraking maneuvers, and slingshot maneuvers in a very short timeframe and it was rather enjoyable.

Of course, then the whole thing turned into the worst soap opera ever; I was saddened by this.

He drinks some black goop, and then his DNA begins to fall apart, followed quickly by the rest of him. This mess all dissolves into the river, et voilà—the implication is that humans arose because of this. Just five minutes in and my brain is already beginning to push back against this dreck.

I thought that was a figurative scene not to be taken literally, just like your brain was actually not pushing back against a pile of trash, but if it was then I suppose lots of scientists would like to look closer at your brain.

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

This really upset me. There were interesting story elements and suggestions of anthropological sci-fi, but not enough to be cohesive or truly engaging. Couple that with the outrageous implausibility of the actual science portrayed and, yes, I was disappointed.

I understand that in science fiction there will be things that don't exist, things that haven't been proven, and so on; that's the idea with science fiction. But I at least need a suspension of disbelief first, please.

I was trying to figure out how a ship that small (well small in my eyes) can generate enough self-sustained energy to travel that distance. Of course my mind only works with what's known today and I am not any kind of engineer...

Science can be cool... Science can be exciting...but if every one stuck to the science of the day we would not have flip phones (Star Trek), iPads (Star Trek Next Generation), and a long list of other implausible things that were dreams before some one with some brains said "Hey...that is a cool idea...how can I do that?" Ok may be they can leave the black goo out...ewe.

May be the best solution is that science has become so...daunting that the artists (writers) do not know how to handle it. So...they don't. So may be the scientific community should get together and do something. Develop a site with easy references for writers and an "Ask a Scientist" deal so people can say "Hey I want to have black goo that breaks DNA and dissolves some one...how would it work?"

We can not depend on people so see every path. So we must look at ways to combine expertise in an easy to understand manner. Now...I am going to watch Big Bang Theory.

Not that I disagree with the points you make, but I think it's important to remember the genre here:

Science FICTION

Try not to take it too literally, or most modern cinema will be ruined for you. Should we also hate on Bradbury and Wells because their science fiction was no where near plausible by the standards of their day?

I thought it was a pretty decent reaction giving the reckless attitude of the teams leaders to that point...

SPOILER ALERT !Let see the number of stupid decisions made to that point...

- You remove your helmet.- The android keeps pushing buttons on his own, never discussing the consequences. Is that OK?- You view a replay of the death of highly intelligent beings... Lets play with the corpse! Really?- Let's separate the team in a huge millennia old, alien build, structure.

Leaving, devising a plan to properly research and understand what happened, would have been the right thing to do, proper scientific process.Proof is that as soon as things go awry, the scientist don't know where the contamination came from.

What bothered me the most was that Promethius's engines always faced forward. Even when they were descending into the planet's atmosphere, the engines were always pointed forward. Theoretically, they should've crashed into the planet at 11.5x the speed of light (I think she said they were 23 light years from Earth, and they were in cryosleep for 2 years).

He drinks some black goop, and then his DNA begins to fall apart, followed quickly by the rest of him. This mess all dissolves into the river, et voilà—the implication is that humans arose because of this. Just five minutes in and my brain is already beginning to push back against this dreck.

I thought that was a figurative scene not to be taken literally, just like your brain was actually not pushing back against a pile of trash, but if it was then I suppose lots of scientists would like to look closer at your brain.

Yeah, I still am not sure what to make of that first scene. I definitely did not come away with the authors interpretation.

I agree that the biologist and geologist were annoying characters. Again though, I didn't interpret this as some kind of future apollo program. I assumed these guys were the only people that could be convinced to go on a semi-secret, semi-crazy journey funded by a rich dying man.

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

Not very many people actually watched it. It was good, though. Remember moviegoers don't want to think - they want the boom (and the boob)!

So... the science was implausible and the characters didn't act rationally. This is different any any other Alien(s) movie how? I don't disagree with anything the author said - it's all very true. But it was exactly what I was expecting from it, so I hung my scientific disbelief at the door and enjoyed the movie.

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

It paints a horribly inaccurate picture of the predictive power of your genome. It's much less deterministic in real life.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson spoke at my university a few weeks ago and talked a little bit about science literacy. "You don't see people saying 'I was never really that good with nouns and verbs', but it's ok for people to be bad at math?"

Science can be cool... Science can be exciting...but if every one stuck to the science of the day we would not have flip phones (Star Trek), iPads (Star Trek Next Generation), and a long list of other implausible things that were dreams before some one with some brains said "Hey...that is a cool idea...how can I do that?" Ok may be they can leave the black goo out...ewe.

None of the things you listed here were implausible at the time they were concieved. Thats part of what made them not only great, but predictive. Wireless communications have existed for more than a century. Batteries have existed for more than a thousand years. Electronics date back a bit more than a century. Pocket communicators and data pads were perfectly reasoanble things to envision during the creation of Star Trek because they were a logical progression of what we already knew. That is what made it great science fiction!

The difference between science fiction and fantasy is the idea that the 'magic' in a sci-fi is supposed to be plausible and conform to rudimentary rules that are based on our actual understanding of the real universe. In Fantasy, no such thing is required as 'magic' can do whatever the scriptwriter needs it to do within the bounds of the universe the created.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson spoke at my university a few weeks ago and talked a little bit about science literacy. "You don't see people saying 'I was never really that good with nouns and verbs', but it's ok for people to be bad at math?"

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

It paints a horribly inaccurate picture of the predictive power of your genome. It's much less deterministic in real life.

While this is true(something my gf reminds me of when I speculate on offspring), it also conforms fairly well to genetics as we learn them in high school, and as a result passes the 'science fiction' rather than 'fantasy' test for me. It does not hurt that the overall concept of a world based on genetics could potentially turn into what is depicted given the fact that the general public is ignorant of the nuances of the field.

I actually didn't even realize at the beginning that the guy dumping himself into the ocean was supposed to be seeding humanity on Earth. I just assumed it was an overly complicated way to get the armor they wear (i.e. you have to "resurrect" with the armor grown on). Very misleading.

I also agree that the crew were mostly idiots. The punk/geologist was the worst, and not because he was a punk. I thought he was actually kind of interesting until he became a completely useless wuss. Seriously, you're on a mission across the galaxy, to an alien planet, and at the first mention of life you run back to the ship? He didn't even take any rock samples back to test!

The whole evil robot thing was annoying too. It's like they had all these grand plans for him, but didn't have enough time/energy/conclusion to work it into the rest of the plot, so they said "screw it let's just have the big bad alien bash him to pieces in this scene instead". Good job writers, good job.

I liked the movie a lot, personally but this is where we have to have the same talk about geeks as any other time they gripe. If you folks had made 'Moon', which is exceptional sci-fi, a blockbuster hit, you'd have more movies like that. The population doesn't care, so the movie-makers don't care. It's pretty straightforward.

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

It paints a horribly inaccurate picture of the predictive power of your genome. It's much less deterministic in real life.

It's just a difference of degrees. The first time I watched Gattaca was two months after a psychology course discussing the merits of nature and nurture and never once did it occur to me to fault the movie for exaggerating a bit.

I work in genomics, and while I often feel scifi movies really drop the ball when it comes to biology (acutally, totally throw the ball away), I didn't mind Prometheus so much.

Yeah, the black goo is a sort of mystery wonder-substance. But the fact it is some sort of very advanced mutagenic/biogenic/whatever substance is probably the result of it being produced by a very advanced civilization. It doesn't bother me they didn't show the breakdown of enzymes or other proteins, just the DNA in the opening scene...honeslty, the general public probably doesn't understand the vast complex of proteins that make up a cell. That they only showed the breakup of DNA is fine in my book.

I would have liked word or two more about the DNA match between Engineers and Humans. Even now we don't have a "true" human sequence, but maybe some mention that the two species differed by "no more than two dog breeds" would have done wonders.

I also think people are over interpreting the opening scene - I think whatever sequel will likely give a totally different explanation of what was happening.

Also, in regards to the crew. Well, it is a corporate mission. A very secretive corporate mission were the recruits are told nothing. Hence, you get the sort of person who's willing to take that sort of mission. Which is probably not the creme of the academic crop, other than the two scientists who made the discovery and are in the know.

Oddly, one of my main beefs is that it was implied ancient Sumer, Babylon, and "Mesopotamian" cultures were not related at all. Forget basic science, did the writers not have an atlas?

Mind you, I'm not saying the movie couldn't use several improvements here and there science-wise, but I feel people are reacting way too negatively to it. There's a lot, lot worse out there. Like 99% of movies that mention "DNA"

Now what was so wrong about Gattaca? I am no geneticist but I didn't see anything that flagrant for what is obviously science fiction and not science fact... but perhaps that only proves your point. I only ask because I really enjoyed that movie and thought it had a compelling subtext, but I also hate moves that completely disregard plausibility and tread on science.

It paints a horribly inaccurate picture of the predictive power of your genome. It's much less deterministic in real life.

Wasn't that kind of the actual point of the movie though? The genetically inferior Vincent manages to consistently outperform his genetically engineered brother through his determination, will, and human spirit?

The wild success of (scientifically implausible) shows like CSI and even Bones has meant a huge upsurge in applications to forensic science programs. Ask the public about DNA and at least a third of the responses will include something about Gattaca, depressing as that may be. Scientific literacy has never been great, but wouldn't the responsible thing be to include a kernel of truth in there so your audience goes home entertained and informed (albeit ever so slightly) at the same time?

Wait, isn't that a good thing? Popular fiction that encourages and foments interest in hard science related careers?

Perhaps the inverse would hold true as well: Shore up the flaky science in pop culture and you'll see a huge increase in the people going to work as phone sex operators and car warranty scam pushers.

In the end, I've read a number of reviews and comments about the flawed logic and science in Prometheus and I still enjoy it. Yes there are some issues with internal logic and consistency, yes a lot of the science is abstracted or inflated to the absurd. However, the movie is very well made, it has a pretty good flow and interesting ideas. The action is much better than you get in a lot of summer blockbusters and I'll definitely enjoy buying it on bluray when it comes out, especially if it contains a large amount of extra stuff, which I can only hope will address a good amount of the confusion left open now (which it is rumored to be the case).

Also, these aren't the best and brightest people on Prometheus. There are the two scientists who believe the star maps, some people from Weyland, and people crazy enough to spend decades in hypersleep for some cash on a secret mission.

These mercenaries usually do favor self-preservation over sample taking. (See: All previous Alien franchise movies)

"- The android keeps pushing buttons on his own, never discussing the consequences. Is that OK?"Sure. Why not. Your boss trains a droid in language to help with translation, and run into a barrier. Droid enables your progress. Why would you question this as someone on the mission? He's an AI programmed to do these things, you don't know that he's perhaps gone Rogue, or crazy.

Edit: Star Wars would have been a whole lot shorter if R2 didn't open a few doors by his own free will.

What bothered me the most was that Promethius's engines always faced forward. Even when they were descending into the planet's atmosphere, the engines were always pointed forward. Theoretically, they should've crashed into the planet at 11.5x the speed of light (I think she said they were 23 light years from Earth, and they were in cryosleep for 2 years).

So I guess Ridley Scott should have held a symposium to explain all of the 'fictional science' in his movie before releasing the movie so that we could all understand his clearly fictional ideas? Should George Lucas have done the same thing?